Lana Del Rey

My favourite song at the moment, although it makes me feel a little mournful.  Is that a good thing?

Something amiss?

Don’t get me wrong, I did miss Australia terribly when I was living in New Zealand.  I often wrote of my desire to hear the morning chorus of native parrots, the aroma of eucalyptus and the vast open skies.  I longed for the fierce displays of native flowers and the butterflies that danced around them.  I missed the kangaroos observing silently as people went about their lives in the countryside and the snakes and goannas not afraid to live in the company of humans.  And now I have all of this, and more.  So why do I feel there is still something missing?  Something that I left behind in New Zealand.  Is it a case of the grass is always greener on the other side meaning no matter where I am, I will always be looking for new grass to stretch out on?  Maybe I am simply not appreciating what I have when I have it and for some reason feel things were always better in the past or will be better in the future? I have always been the sort of person that moves from one adventure to another and often wishes for the next one to start as soon as the current one begins.  A lack of patience some might say.  Or not stopping to enjoy the moment I am in because I am thinking too much about the moments passed and the ones yet to come. 

So, where does that leave me?  I have the realisation of what I feel is senseless, almost offensive, and yet I continue to hold on to it.  Is this which drives me from one adventure to the next and maybe without that deep seeded feeling, I would fall to the ground and hold tight for fear of change? Perhaps it is the motivator for all things I do, but I am letting it get too much control over my choices?  Whatever the answer to my searching queries, the impact will be the same.  Get up, shake yourself down and look at where you are.  Every moment is fleeting so enjoy the experiences they bring through your heart and live life with the spirit of contentment.   What I am feeling is not to be ashamed of or changed for it is part of my psyche, of what makes me ‘me’.  Why would anyone, let alone myself, want to change that?

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Well, this is embarrassing!  So long and not a word from me.  It is unforgivable.
So what happened? I am not sure myself really.  Life was going along great, I thought I was settling in with a new groove and nothing was out of my reach.  It's easy how the brain can convince the soul that all is well, when really there is a monster lurking in the shadows of your mind.  But a milestone has been reached, the monster destroyed and I'm starting to feel groovy once more.  Lets get re-acquainted.

Tomorrow is fresh, with no mistakes in it.  ~L.M. Montgomery

An interview with myself: Part 2

Q. What have you been enjoying the most since arriving in Darwin?

A.  Oohh, let me see.  A number of things really.  There are markets scattered around  the city area, especially on weekends.  Walking through the Mindl Beach markets on sunset is a vibrant and lively experience.  Getting some dinner from the dozens of international food vans and then sitting on the beach to watch the sun finish its journey for the day is a tradition up here.  I love having all the wild birds right outside my door – flocks of big red-tailed black cockatoos flying overhead, all sorts of parrots and honeyeaters flitting through our garden, storks and ducks flying between the lagoons scattered over the plains.  We have a hundred, if not more, Rainbow Bee eaters which roost in a colony along our driveway.  It’s an amazing chorus of commotion as they all have a final dust bath and flutter to their selected branch.

Q. What other things are you looking forward to?

A. Definitely the wet season which will start making its presence known again around October.  We saw the tail end of the last one when we arrived, but it will be much more brilliant to see a full season of it next summer.  The thunder rolls across the countryside with an unforgiving rumble, combined with the display of lightening in every direction.  As the season moves on, the torrential rain becomes part of the extravaganza culminating in a deafening drum of water lashing foliage and rooves alike.

Q. What are you not looking forward to?

A. The storms I just mentioned are amazing, but more rain, more heat, means that there is an unbearably stifling humidity for much of the day.  This oppressive humidity is what I am not looking forward to at all.

Q. Where to from here?

A. From Darwin you mean?  Well, that is yet to be discussed but I have a few ideas.  If I tell you everything now though, you won’t have a reason to catch up with me later.

Interview complete.

An interview with myself: Part 1

Q. So how have you been since we last communicated?

A. Well, busy to put it in one word.  After packing up our lives in New Zealand we now live in Darwin, with a two week long stopover in South Australia.  It was a whirlwind period and I feel like I have lost the past few months.

Q. Are you happy to be back in Australia?  I know you missed it a lot while living in New Zealand.

A. Yes indeed,  I did miss Australia and have written in the past  how I pined for the sounds of the Australian bush, the smell of eucalyptus, the bright wide open spaces and so forth.  Having said that though, there were always going to be things I’d miss about New Zealand once I had left.  So while I am enjoying being back here, I often think about what I have left behind.  I anticipate moving back there again one day, perhaps in the not too distant future.

Q. Wow, breaking news, we will save that for another interview then!  So, what was your first impression of Darwin?

A. Having been here many times as a tour guide, I did have some idea what I was getting myself in to.  It has certainly grown in the past 10 years though, with several high rise buildings now giving a definitive urban outline to the skyline.  It is remains a lovely, tropical and sunny city surrounded by blue ocean and palm trees swaying in the breeze.  The ‘dry’ season has just begun so the savannah woodland which makes up most of the landscape here has begun to dry out.  We live about half an hour south of Darwin, so I enjoy a drive through this harsh environment which then gives way to the tropical parks and gardens of Darwin city.  It’s a nice transition.

TBC in the next post